Online grocery spending continues to grow at a rapid pace, now making up 5.5% of total grocery spending in the U.S., according to a new study from advisory firm Brick Meets Click. Nearly 30% of U.S. households buy groceries online, and most of the near-term growth in online grocery spending will continue to come from this group of active online grocery shoppers.
Author Archives: Jeffrey Goh
Discover how robotics, automation, artificial intelligence and mobile apps continue to reshape the future of the cold food and beverage industry.
United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI), Providence, R.I., announced plans to acquire SUPERVALU INC., Minneapolis, for approximately $2.9 billion. The transaction will greatly expand UNFI’s customer base and exposure across channels, including those where demand for “better for you” products is increasing.
The Trump administration issued a final ruling on Wednesday allowing insurers to sell short-term, limited-duration health plans on the insurance markets as soon as this year.
Retail is in the midst of a stressful transformation that’s producing plenty of collateral damage. As customers’ shopping habits evolve and brands rush to meet them, the end-game for physical stores is taking shape. Stores have suffered — there’s no need to belabor the point. Declines in foot traffic and the convenience of e-commerce have taken their toll. But many of the best advances come from times of great stress and brands are learning to adapt to the new normal.
The number of Americans over 50 who are online grocery-shopping is relatively low, with only 17% ever having ordered groceries to be picked up from a store, 17% from a prepared meal delivery service, 16% ever having ordered groceries to be delivered, and 10% having ordered from a meal-kit delivery service. Those are among the findings from a new survey conducted by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation in collaboration with AARP Foundation.
Call it huge or fantastic or even beautiful. Trumpian adjectives are absolutely appropriate to describe the humming U.S. economy in the second quarter of this year. The great American opportunity machine is roaring once again. While it may be unlikely that growth will be quite this strong in the quarters to come, Friday’s GDP report from the Commerce Department gives every reason to believe that a robust expansion will continue. That’s in large part because businesses have been making significant investments in new factories and equipment since the start of this year. Such capital expenditures are not one-quarter wonders-they allow higher production in the years to come.
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US importers are facing a perilous peak season in the trans-Pacific this year, with many likely to be forced to pay significantly higher rates to get goods onto ships that in many cases are nearly sold out. Ocean carriers in certain cases are holding the line on weekly minimum quantity commitments (MQC) as they have done in prior periods of tight capacity, meaning that any given shipper will be allocated only one week’s worth of capacity out of its total annual MQC. As an example, with a total annual commitment of 1,000 FEU, just 20 FEU or 1/50th would be allowed.
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The container shipping companies are faced with the perfect storm with the ever tighter environmental regulations coming into force and oil prices jumping, exerting further pressure on liners to squeeze out profit from the buoyant demand.
After a weak start to the year, demand for global airfreight has been trending steadily upward, note analysts for The International Air Transport Association (IATA). Shippers should realize, however, that the rapid expansion witnessed in 2017 may be coming to an end, with demand still growing, but at a slower pace through the last half of 2018.